Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Wednesday, 5 November 2014

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform

Overview of Banking Sector: Bank of Ireland

3:15 pm

Mr. Richie Boucher:

If I can help in a different way, I will try to give the definitive answer. A material proportion of our customers would not qualify because of the loan-to-value cap in particular. We believe that a lot of our customers would qualify under the income potential but the loan-to-value cap would cap that number. There is then an obvious concern as to whether customers would take on unsecured or other forms of higher interest-bearing debt to try to deal with that. This is an obvious issue we would face. We will be looking at this issue and will decide on whether to make a submission to the Central Bank. However, in answer to the Deputy's question, the income criteria are more likely not to be the issue for the customer. It is the loan to value and the ability to get the deposit.